


The Beginner's Guide to Palmistry

by mimikutie



Category: Hunter: The Reckoning, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, I gave her a broom? i couldnt resist it, I know nothing about WOD monsters, Pre-Relationship, elements of supernatural horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 11:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20778197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimikutie/pseuds/mimikutie
Summary: Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered am I.((A prelude/introduction to my imbued character and his witchy crush. (for the TTRPG))





	The Beginner's Guide to Palmistry

**Author's Note:**

> for my co-storytellers, who hopefully tolerate reading this. Love u! ♡

Anathema Revenir was by no means, a saint. One could hardly describe her as being all that “nice” to begin with, and on good days she was just above “tolerable”. But then she was a witch, a creature of the night to be feared or attacked, she didn’t expect to be accepted, much less tolerated. Sure, she was no bloodthirsty vampire, or ghoul, or werewolf, or whatever the hell else, but neither was she a people person, a social butterfly, a yes-man. Which is why she tried not to pity the man before her store counter.

“You have an amazing collection. I can’t even imagine where you would find most of these.” He shrugged the stack onto the countertop, smiling benignly at the cover of the magazine held before her face. She studied him suspiciously from over the pages, not bothering to hide the squint of her scarred eye. He dropped his gaze bashfully and fidgeted with the broad glasses on his nose but didn’t quit his dumb grin.

“Sure,” she grumbled simply, and began ringing up his purchases on the register, taking note of the titles. _The Schools and Masters of Fencing, Traditional Meditative Pose, The Gold-Bug and Other Tales by Edgar Allen Poe, Walden, The Beginner’s Guide to Palmistry_, and a thesaurus.

The usual from her usual. She studied him from over the buttons of the antique register. For all the omens she’d gotten that he was a man on his way to hunter-dom, he looked nothing like it. In fact, from what she’d gathered he was a perfectly ordinary guy- well, ‘ordinary’ was always a strong word.

Based off his buying history he tried every hobby and committed to almost none, and if his taste in books wasn’t old-fashioned enough, his dress more than made up for it. At first flush she thought he was a historical reenactor, or maybe someone who solved mysteries on the side. It was cool enough in Oregon to allow for it, but he never seemed to go anywhere without being laughably overdressed (not that she spied on him or anything, just a bit of cautious observation, only now and again). Even then, on a weekday like any other, he was buttoned into a fine white blouse and formal slacks, draped over in a heavy black overcoat, and topped off with a pale tie with little crows printed on it. He was muscled, though not imposingly so, and she guessed he led a pretty easy life from the couple extra pounds on his middle. He couldn’t have been much older than her, and his freckles and dorky glasses only subtracted years from his face.

She took the thesaurus off the tab and let him walk out with it free of charge. She tried to savor his gracious smile, just in case it was the last time they spoke to each other civilly. Anathema was not nice, but she still felt sorry for the guy, still felt that she might miss him once he’d been torn into pieces.

* * *

Adam didn’t usually stay on campus late. This would’ve been the time he liked to spend at home, but he’d found himself hooked on his palmistry book. He was used to getting caught up in little fixations like these, even more so after discovering the local bookseller and its owner. She hadn’t seemed very interested in him, only ever introducing herself as simply ‘Ana’, but in the short conversations they had there was something all-knowing in her eye that he couldn’t stop thinking about (_something downright eerie_, a wiser voice inside him tried to insist). Whatever talent she had for collecting books had cycled him through a dozen more pet passions, bringing him to this current one.

He laid the pages out flat and traced over the folds and creases in his hand, trying to commit each to memory.

Maybe discussions headed by the department on the rising ‘Modern Witchcraft’ were on his mind. It had been a subject of great interest to the study of anthropology, as far back as the 70’s, but just in those past few months it had latched on him hard. Living in the part of the country that he did, he couldn’t say he was shocked to see stones and candles and sage bundles filling the stores; he couldn’t imagine how popular it must have gotten just an hour or two north, in Portland.

There was something a bit shameful about it, in the same way that he didn’t let visitors to his house see the bookshelf solely dedicated to Poe and Shelley. _I’m almost 30 years old for god’s sake, _he thought. _probably too old to be moderating X-Files fan wikis too_, the wiser voice responded smartly_. _He conceded to that, ruefully. He shifted the book to rest behind the edge of the desk, self-consciously aware of a library staff pushing the re-shelving cart past his table and of the man at the instant coffee machine a few tables away.

When he resumed his place on the page, he was startled by the words across it. _YOU ARE NEEDED_.

He apparently hadn’t noticed them before, even as they were written out plainly in bold lettering. He drew his coat closer around him, chilled, and his eyes went back to his outheld palm. It was imperceptible at first, but inspecting it as the book directed, it was impossible to miss. His fate line, where it had been slight and vague just above the end of his wrist, was lengthening and deepening.

“I can put that away for you if you’d like.”

He nearly fell from the chair, bolting upright from open page and palm to look into the librarian’s face, still at her reshelf cart, her own hand outstretched.

“Ah-that’s. No, thank you. This is my own.”

“In that case, is there anything you’d like checked out? We’re about to close for the night, sir.”

He knew that was not the case, it was only 8:27, the library wasn’t supposed to close until 11 most nights. He wanted to look away from her face, staring at the bridge of her nose to avoid her eyes. Like the line in his palm, there was something barely perceptible around the lines of her polite smile. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her face before, despite being a frequent visitor at the campus library.

He stood up slowly. “No thanks. I apologize, it wasn’t my intention to hold you up- If you were trying to close, that is.” He shrugged his bag on fast. The air around him was cold even through his dark coat. The man at the coffee machine had turned, facing him stonily, head-on.

She took a step forward in response. Her cheeks were gaunt under her gray eyes, and when her smile broadened it pulled her blanched skin taut, blue with veins and as coldly smooth as ceramic. Her jawbone and the vertices of her eye sockets were sharpening, fading through the phantom skin. Adam’s stomach sunk with horror and he shrunk back, disbelieving. He was too dumbfounded to cry out, or even fight back, when her cold grip shocked across his arm.

“Curiosity killed the cat, professor.” Her voice was harsh from her skeletal lips, even as it was still coldly civil, mocking.

Ice shocked the breath out of his lungs, the thing’s clay hand was on his neck, so tight that he could scarcely distinguish where her fingers ended and his skin was bruising against it. If any words could have come to him, they died under her clutch. Were the lights going out, or was it his vision darkening?

“We’ll see if satisfaction brings it back.”

It was baffling how real it was, and yet his mind was laboring to recognize that it was happening. He could only be distantly aware that he was afraid. And in danger.

He was still only just beginning to catch up to reality when the thing was tossed away from him and he crumpled to the ground, struggling to find his breath again.

“I told you to fuck off out of my town, I can either ask you again or I can _make_ you.”

He couldn’t pull his head up from the carpet, heavy as it was, but the voice that called out was familiar, surly and demanding. He forced himself to look up, and up further. It was the bookseller, several feet over the desks hovering atop (_riding?_) a broom of all things. His head ached behind his temple. feeling that he’d been slapped into waking. He adjusted his glasses, at an odd tilt from the fall. It was crazy, implausible, but he knew deep down it couldn’t have been impossible, in fact it felt obvious. Ana was a witch; those things were undead, and they might’ve hurt him given the chance.

The forms shrunk back under her glare, seeming to melt into the floor. He almost would have as well. Her long, tangling raven hair hung on her shoulders in a lion-esque pile, her face angled and stern, snaked over in pale scarring. Even in her pedestrian jeans and t-shirt she couldn’t have been anything but a witch. He flinched when her dark eyes widened on him, halting even his vague thoughts of running.

She worked her jaw and her eyes flitted over the room. Her cold anger seemed to have suddenly snuffed out, leaving her with an unexpectedly alarmed look. It was all he could do to stare back at her blankly.

She pointed a calloused finger at him roughly and he squeezed an eye shut.

“Don’t. Tell. Anyone. I’ll skin that cute face!”

She paled again, seeming to realize what she’d said. “Fuck- What? No. I- I’m outta here. Don’t let me catch you being an idiot again!”

The air stirred violently, Adam shut both eyes this time, heart in his throat. But when he dared to open them again, the room was dark and empty, a breeze from an open window ghosting over his skin. Only a fading ‘_Goddammit goddammit goddammit’ _on the wind outside.

‘_Agent Mulder believes,’ _he thought to himself, adrenaline coursing out of him as he fell into a faint, ‘_we are not alone.’ _

* * *

To: hunter.list@hunter-net.org

From: AgentSpooky-Prof

Subject: I guess it explains a lot…

I don’t know that I understand it exactly just yet… In fact, I’m sure that I don’t, but I do know that it’s resolved as many questions as it’s arisen. The Impressionist Painting professor’s gotten into a bit of a spat about how she refuses to take afternoon classes, despite the huge population of art students we have who all need the credit, maybe it really does have to do with the sun? And I guess I always was under the impression that she had noticeably pointed teeth.

We’ve talked before, just in the hall or at the coffee places on campus, and when I saw her again (I mean _really _saw her) I wasn’t sure if I should even look her in the face for fear of another scene like that of the library. She’s nice though, and I suppose she doesn’t act any more unusual than she ever had.

I know some of you won’t be happy to hear it, but that’s fine. There’s a whole world of individuals, entirely unseen ways of life, that so little others can even see, much less observe. My feelings are what they are, and no one here needs to tell me that they might be naïve or even completely asinine. As far as I’m concerned, I have a lot of research ahead of me, and someone I’d like to speak to again in person. Don’t try to get in contact with me if your goal is to talk me out of it, I’ve always been stubborn.

Regards,


End file.
